Published on : Friday, March 8, 2019
The show, which has started from March 6th and will continue till 9th, is one of the “must-see” tourism exhibitions. It showcases the products and services of over 10000 exhibitors from 180 countries and regions.
To quote Phindile Makwakwa, acting chief, “KwaZulu-Natal has embraced the global and fast-moving pace of connecting people and cities with the recent introduction of direct British Airways flights to Durban from London. The ITB allows the European market like Germany, which is our top three international source markets, to make their travel seamless.”
“German visitors mostly travel to the province for leisure, rather than business and we are confident our presence at ITB sends a signal that we are back to show more of what we have on offer.”
The strong euro currency, the good weather and leisure safari packages of the province makes KZN an amazing holiday destination, particularly for German visitors.
“ITB is a great platform to again gain access and meet up with our various trade partners, to drive awareness about our destination and encourage them to include KZN in their brochures and packages.”
“The exhibition is also attended by trade tourism buyers from other countries and this platform provides us with a bigger network of buyers so we can ultimately grow our international tourism arrivals,” Makwakwa added.
TKZN works together with different partners in the German market comprising Dertour, Thomas Cook, South African Airways, Tourvest and Knecht Resein to make a foray into this market, with a target of motivating awareness of the destination and encouraging.
For KZN, the other top five long-haul source markets are the UK, the US, Netherlands, France and India.
Figures show that 48958 German vacationers have visited KwaZulu-Natal in 2016, boosting up the local tourism economy and assisting in sustaining jobs in the hospitality sector.